The University has almost three hundred pieces of silver in its collection and, in common with many institutions and museums, this is a diverse collection including seemingly disparate objects of varying quality and use. There are ceremonial items such as the mace and regalia, dinner suites and table items, medals and trophies. The University collection has been amassed almost exclusively through donation and bequest and thus the overriding common denominator in provenance is the emotion attached to each piece – memory, loss, affection, nostalgia, respect, triumph.
Silver is difficult to display in any museum context – its preventative care and security restrictions dictate a very obvious physical barrier. Together with the apparent lack of relevance of silverware to the lives of many people today and the hard, static, reflective quality of the material, particularly when housed en masse, this can distance the visitor, who more often than not is overwhelmed by the opulence but cannot engage meaningfully with the individual items.
The provision of meaningful interpretation for objects is a headache for curators – simple provision of labels is limiting and aesthetically challenging, and resorting to a system of cross-referenced numbers linking the objects with interpretation outside the case, is frustrating for most visitors, let alone those who cannot read due to age, disability or language difference. These problems were exacerbated at Queen's by the unsuitable display cases used for the silver in the Visitors' Centre and, in 2005, all of the Queen's University Silver was removed to the silver vault and has been inaccessible to visitors.
It had been clear for some time that the Queen's silver was in need of new display cases for its ongoing care and security and a means of interpretation that would unite the collection and make it as accessible as possible.
The Project
Read more about the background to the Silver Sounds project.
Conservation
Find out about the conservation of the Queen's University Silver Collection.
The Language of Silversmithing
The language of silvermsithing is a rich one filled with history. Find out more about it here.
An Introduction to Hallmarks
Learn about hallmarks and their history.
